


Cursed

by madame_faust



Category: Beauty and the Beast - All Media Types, Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Fairy Tale Elements, Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-27
Updated: 2019-11-20
Packaged: 2020-05-20 19:43:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19383466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madame_faust/pseuds/madame_faust
Summary: What would happen if a haughty Persian court magician ran afoul of an actual sorceress? Phantom of the Opera meets Beauty and the Beast.





	1. Cursed

**Author's Note:**

> This was directly inspired by Ilustrariane's Beast Erik illustrations on Tumblr, especially the most recent one  
> https://ilustrariane.tumblr.com/image/185886727464

In truth, his appearance was immaterial. He'd always repelled others, whether due to his unnatural height, his strange yellow eyes, the length and chill of his spider-like hands, or his hideous face. Even covered in fine clothes, with his hands gloved and his face masked, he radiated an uncanny sensibility about him that caused passersby to avert their eyes from his form or, if they could, give him a wide berth in the street. 

What were claws to a skilled assassin? What were horns to a man with the face of the Devil himself? What was strength and muscle and fur to a man who'd repelled, frightened, and fought his way through the world for the entirety of his life? To turn from being monstrous to a living monster was a difference of degrees. Hardly a 'curse.' Hardly a punishment.

But the witch had to have known that. When he woke, head pounding, mouth dry, body aching the physical reality of the curse he'd been placed under scarcely registered. Until he attempted to speak. 

The structure of the jaw was altered. It was difficult to keep his teeth and lips aligned to create intelligible speech. But that was not what cause his breath to catch in his throat, his heart to stutter in his newly-transfigured chest. 

She'd taken his _voice_. 

The powerful, sweet, unearthly, angelic voice that was his _one_ beauty. Gone. _Gone_. Replaced with a harsh gutteral snarl, deep, but uncontrolled. A voice from which no melody could be sustained, no sweet-seeming conversation held. His voice was more repellent than his body. 

And clawed hands could not tenderly pressed the strings of a violin, or pluck at a dotar to create glorious sound. Animal paws could not play the piano with grace. 

Yes, he had been monstrous, but she turned him into a monster, little better than an intelligent animal. A dumb thing, without the ability to create even an artificial beauty. He had always been cut off from others physically. Isolation was not new, but isolation without music, excepting that which he heard in his own head...torturous. 

The kind of torture that brought tears to his yellow eyes for the first time in years. A pain beyond beatings, beyond loneliness. Pain beyond anything he had suffered before. 

Just as she wanted it.

_You have gifts, Assassin. But you squander them and debase yourself in blood.  A puppet for a corrupt and vile King. The worst of it is, you know better. You could walk away. Escape. But you have not. For years, you have not._

Ruby red lips had curled up in a cruel smile. He could not recall her face, but he remembered her mouth, wide, red, smiling, with sharp teeth.

_You act as a beast and so a beast you will become. There is hope for you, however. If you can find love in your heart for another, and earn love for yourself in return, the spell will be broken._

He'd scoffed then. He too had invoked magic and the spirit realm before. All smoke and mirrors. 

But a pain in his head, an ache in his limbs, and a fire of his skin stoppered his tongue and forbade him from mocking her supposed power any longer. Not when he felt it roiling in his blood.

_It will take time of course; all transformations take time. But time you will have, my beast. All the time in the world._

Bullets could not fell him. Nor ropes squeeze the life from his throat. Knives did nothing. Within a year, he knew; he'd tried them all. 

He wandered. He raged. He despaired. Hope, she'd said. There was hope. Hope for _love_. How? When no one had ever loved him. When he did not know how to love or be loved. When he had nothing, not even music?

Yet one day, he heard it. In a damp, moldering cellar beneath the streets of Paris. Hope came to him as a song.

_"_ _Herr Olof rider om otte_  
_Driver dagg, faller rim_  
_Ljuse dagen honom tyckte._

_Herr Olof kommer hem,_  
_När skogen görs lövegrön."_

It was a distant voice, milling with the sounds of shoes scuffling on stone, a brave little warbling voice attempting to bring comfort to someone wandering alone. 

His sharp ears pricked at the sound. The sweet sound. The lovely sound.

But it could be _more_. He knew it as sure as he knew that he was damned. It could be so much more than sweet and lovely. It could be astonishing, powerful, _awe-inspiring_. The voice of an angel.

And so the monster stirred. Raised its long and terrible limbs and stalked toward the source of the sound. A rag-picker with a golden throat and sky-blue eyes who stopped her song abruptly. 

She raised her head and a long, lanky strand of curling hair felt about her pinched and pale face. Into the darkness she tentatively called, "Who's there?"

And that grim, terrible, unmusical rasp that was all the voice he had whispered, "Keep singing."

The little angel of rags and curls stiffened. But she did not run. She raised her head and looked instinctively toward the shadows where he had hidden himself. Again she called, "Who's there?" in a voice that shook only a little.

His heart thudded quickly against his ribs. There was no way to gentle his tone, no way to calm her with a voice he no longer possessed. He could not speak sweetly. He could only speak quietly.

"Sing." Then, hardly a whisper at all, merely a suggestion of sound. " _Please_."

The little angel stood stock-still. Any second now and she would bolt, like a frightened sheep away from a wolf. 

" _Herr Olof rider om otte_  
_Driver dagg, faller rim_  
_Ljuse dagen honom tyckte._

_Herr Olof kommer hem,_  
_När skogen görs lövegrön."_

The tightness in his chest transformed into a tingling in his limbs, not borne of magic, but something more foreign and impossible.

Hope.


	2. Named

He started leaving little gifts for the rag-picker. Coins and bone and anything she could sell to ensure her return to the catacombs.

In turn, she left him trinkets. Offerings, really. A lock of hair tied with a dirty piece of string. Sour wine tipped and poured into the dirty water of the underground lake. Harmless little rituals meant to ward off whatever dark magic she supposed he possessed. He let it go on so long as he could hear her sing. It was only when she pricked her calloused and soot-stained fingertips that he bade her stop.

"Why?" she asked, not fearful, but wary. "I thought the fair folk liked...presents."

"They do," he confirmed, bitterly. Presents, yes. And offerings. And humility and deference and all the other little courtly behaviors he himself lacked. "But I am not one of them."

The rag-picker squinted into the shadows on the other side of the watery passage that separated them. Of course, she saw nothing but darkness. He could see her, though. Grubby. Dreadfully thin. The weather in the world above was turning colder by the day, but she still wore only her moth-eaten shawl and ratty bonnet to keep the wind from her ears and throat. 

"I couldn't quite make out what you are," she admitted. "You're too smart to be a troll. Too big, I think, to be a _nisse_. I thought, at first, a _nøkk_ , but..."

He could hear the blush in her voice, even if he could not see it under the grime on her cheeks.

"They're said to have beautiful voices. They make beautiful music."

The heart in his chest contracted painfully. Water welled in his yellow eyes. He closed them, ashamed and humiliated.

A long silence passed between them and the girl called, "Have you gone? I didn't mean to offend you."

The consequences for offense could be dire, he reflected. If he was a _jinn_ or a _sidhe_. One must speak carefully around such creatures. One must take care and be wary...

But he was neither. He opened his eyes and heard her exhale of relief. No toads would fall out of her mouth when she spoke. No snakes would writhe where once there were lovely blonde locks. 

"I could," he whispered, the soft, ugly noise carrying across the still water between them. "Once. It was...all I had to offer the world. All the good that was in me."

The girl took a step closer to him. The toe of her thin-soled boot dipped into the water's edge and sent a ripped through the dark underground river. "What happened to your music?"

"I lost it," he replied. Then added, "It was _taken_ from me."

The look upon her face was one of heartbroken sorrow. She brought a hand to her chest as though her heart _was_ breaking; breaking for him. He rose from where he had been crouched upon the stone, wanted to back away, to shout at her that he was not worth her pity. He deserved it, after all; hadn't he deserved it?

Her eyes tracked his movement up. Though the dim light that filtered down shone only on her, she must be able to see something of him, at least the gleam of his eyes. Clasping her hands in front of her like a child at the altar-rail, she swallowed thickly and said, "I'm so sorry for you."

"It was my own doing," he said at once, recoiling away from her, from the tender feelings she set into motion in his heart. His heart was like a shriveled vine; choked and lifeless. This girl's words and soft looks brought life into it, like rainwater gave life to wilted flowers. 

But _he_ was not a flower. _He_ was a monster. A vicious thing of claw and fang and no music. No beauty. He was nothing. 

"Is that why you asked me to sing?" she ventured. "That first day? You missed the music?"

It wasn't just that. Oh, yes, occasionally he would crouch outside a church during the wintertime to hear the psalms or claw his way into the upper cellars of the great Opera House to strain his pointed ears to catch snatches of the music above, but it was more than that with her. The voices that warbled from the choirloft were blandly soothing, the operatic divas impressive, but this girl's voice was different. There was a spirit to it that fed his black and decaying soul. That watered his withered heart even before she looked toward him with compassion.

If he was not a monster, but a man - a proper man with a proper face - that voice would have stopped him in his tracks. If he was the grandest king and she the lowliest peasant, if he heard that voice echoing up to the highest tower of his castle from a fallow field, he was sure he would have dashed down the hundred stairs and run through the pastures to get down on bended knee at her feel to beg her to take up her song again.

"I should never have presumed," he said, bowing his head and closing his eyes again. It was wrong. She thought she sang to appeals a fickle spirit. Not to give comfort to a despairing beast. "You needn't trouble yourself again. I am no  _nøkk_ or genie. I am...nothing. A monster in the dark. That's all."

"No, wait!" she called when she heard him moving, saw the bulk of him sway in shadow and heard the scrape of his claws upon the stone. "You said - you asked me _please_. At first I thought you were a - never mind. But when you said 'please,' I thought you...must be a man.

"And you have been...kind," she went on desperately when he did not reply. "As even mortal men are not kind. Don't go. Or if you do, promise you'll come back. I've been so lonely."

Tears fell, revealing alabaster skin beneath the soot and dust of the streets and cellars. Silently, in the dark, the monster wept as well, though his disappeared into black fur, leaving no trace of their having fallen at all. 

"I will come back," he said, not sure if he was making a threat or a promise. But her tears stopped. She smiled and it was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. 

"Won't you...will you let me look at you?" she asked. "I've seen your eyes, I know..."

She trailed off, blotting at her tears with the corner of her shawl. Refusal was his first instinct. If she saw, she would never come back. Would regret her folly in venturing down to the cellars day after day and keeping company with a beast in the shadows. 

Yet, did she not deserve to know? She confessed her loneliness and shared her music with a thing she could not see. She brought him a measure of solace, even pleasure. Could he continue to partake of her company under ignorant pretense?

The man he had been would have unequivocally agreed that _yes_ he should. Surviving in a world that offered him nothing, that made him bleed and steal and, yes, even  _kill_ for things which other men could merely reach out their hand to take, why shouldn't he merely take from this girl what she willingly offered? Innocent companionship. Song. A smile to light the dark caverns. She could give and give and give of herself and he could live off her sympathetic heart, lovely face, and beautiful voice like a leech feeding on blood. Wasn't he owed that much? Hadn't he suffered enough to earn a bit of happiness, however fleetingly given and dishonestly taken?

"Please?" she whispered across the water.

That man he had been was gone. In its place, a useless, monstrous, horrifying thing who had nothing to offer to anyone. And yet this girl had asked one thing of him: truthfulness. To look at that with which she conversed and sang and was willing to give even blood to appease. 

"Stay where you are," he said warningly. "If you...are frightened, I beg you do not run. I will run. As far and as fast as you like. But please, stay where you are, then go back the way you came."

She took a step back. To his great astonishment she sat upon the floor, folding her hands demurely into her lap. She looked up into his glowing eyes expectantly. 

Five steps placed him at the water's edge. Nothing, to one who had traveled the world over. But it felt like the longest journey of his life.

Her hands did not remain in her lap for long. When his clawed, wolf-like hind legs were revealed they rose to cover her wide, gasping mouth. Their grip upon her face tightened as he fully revealed himself; much of his body was covered with a long, threadbare coat, piecemeal and stitched together to cover his broad chest, humped back. But it could not cover the horns that curled from his head or the animal-like snout and fangs that destroyed the sound of his voice. It was his turn to swallow thickly, even as he hunched down, to diminish his impossible height, used his clawed paws to pull the coat tighter round him. She stood on legs that shook; he fancied he could hear her knees knocking.

"I will go," he said to the floor, knees bent, ready to flee as he'd promised. "I beg you, do _not_ run. It is easy to get lost down here."

"Wait, don't go," she insisted. Her left arm was wrapped instinctively, protectively about her waist, but her right hand reached out as though she would touch him. He stared at it in wonder. She was at the water's edge again, separated from him by inky blackness. Yet she leaned closer. "I'm not..."

 _Frightened_ , he supposed she meant to say, but stopped herself. So pure of spirit was she that she could not bring herself to lie.

"Don't go," she asked again. She took a deep, steadying breath. Looked at him, in all his fearful state and the teeth that could grind her bones, the claws that could rend her flesh. "What is your name?"

A name? Was it another superstition at play? Know the name of the monster and it holds no power over you? But there she had him at a disadvantage.

"I - I have no name," he admitted shamefully. He had used many, over the years. When the curse was laid upon them, he had gone by 'Ismail.' At the foundling's home, he was 'Gaston.' But so were a dozen other boys. "I was never given one. I have used many. But I have none of my own."

"Oh," she replied, sounding forlorn. But she did not retreat. And neither did he.

"What is your name?" he asked, though he was sure she would not say. 

She surprised him.

"Christine," she replied at once. She peered up at him thoughtfully now; the longer she looked, the less afraid she seemed. "But you must have a name. I must call you something."

"Beast?" he suggested; he'd been called worse.

Her delicate little nose wrinkled at she shook her head. "No. No. I think...Erik. That was the name of a great explorer. Do you...do you like it?"

Names had power. According to traditions, to know a creature's name was to hold sway over it. To conjure it. Or to banish it. To _bestow_ a name provided an even greater power.

But he - Erik - did not realize that at the time. Nevertheless, by gifting him a name, little Christine had worked a magic of her own. She had taken the first step toward turning the monster into a man.


	3. Broken

Winter's chill fell upon the city, icing over the boulevards. The wind slapped an unhealthy redness into Christine's cheeks and nose; she took to spending more time below, where the wind could not reach her. She kept him company, sitting at the water's edge, singing, and telling him bits and pieces of tales of her youth.

There was no mention of a mother, but a father featured frequently. A kind man, but a foolish one. Who abandoned a good living and bundled his little daughter away on the back of a pony after he buried his wife. They traveled frequently, living on music, clean fresh air, and their love for one another. But then the father was stricken with a sudden violent fever. The violin was pawned to pay for medicines. And the girl found she could not live on air alone. 

He - Erik, for now - sat by and listened. He'd little practice with the art. When one lived by one's wits, one learned to talk quickly and extravagantly to pretend courage when one was afraid and knowledge when one was ignorant. He had such a pretty voice, he could nearly always make an unwitting mark sit and listen.

But now his voice was rough and course and would bring no pleasure to anyone's ears. Instead he closed his mouth and opened his ears. When he spoke it was brief, and he said nothing more than necessary, his words neither quick nor eloquent. He could lie as easily and fancifully as any, but extending heartfelt sympathy and concern was a skill he'd never mastered. Indeed, a skill at which he'd had little practice. 

But one day Christine's voice was stricken with a hoarseness that made his keen ears prick and his heart clench. She coughed and apologized that she could not sing. She shivered instead and he begged her not to even speak; she had to preserve her voice and her strength. 

She gave a rasping laugh with descended into coughing.

"I've only got a spot of ague," she smiled, but it quickly faded into a contemplative, sorrowful expression. "Of course, Papa said the same to me. At the end."

Had he not known the sad story of her father, had he not seen 'a spot of ague' turn into something much worse himself for those who made their homes under bridges and along the highways, he might have stayed his tongue and not done the mad, wonderful thing he did. It was sheer panic that made him ask - nay, _insist_ \- "You must stay with me."

Erik did not know where it was Christine took herself to when she went above ground; a churchyard, he fancied, or the sanctuary if she could steal inside without being noticed. Where ever she went, he assumed she preferred her borrowed lodgings to the prospect of living alongside a monster. 

But perhaps his suppositions were wrong. Though she seemed surprised at the offer, she did not turn him down. On the contrary, she rose on shaking legs and made to dip a toe into the icy water that separated them -

"No!"

Erik surprised himself with the vehemence of his response. Christine froze, still as a statue. He was hardly aware of his own intentions until he found himself taking a step toward her, arms outstretched.

"Allow me."

And she did. He'd never held anyone before; not tenderly, as he did then, scooping her up as though she was a china doll, beautiful and fragile. She lay her head against his chest, drawing closer to the warmth he exuded and he guiltily reflected that he ought to have touched her sooner. There were some things, it seemed, he could chance as a beast that he could not manage as a man.

A peculiar sensation overcame him when she so pliantly allowed him to hold her close. A warmth that settled about his hunched back and shoulders like a cloak. She _trusted_ him. Of course, she must have, to keep company with a beast even after she saw it and knew it for what it was. But it was one thing to sit in careful separation from a monster and another to allow it to drag you down into the depths of the unknown. A trickle of fear crept in that chilled the new warmth. He _had_ to prove himself worthy of her trust. But how?

He could keep her warm, at least, so he began with that. Deep in the rock he'd made a burrow of sorts for himself. A combination of resourcefulness and theft enabled him to make a cozy nook in which she might sleep. Broth and tea were impossibilities, but he stole what he could to nourish her and he found clean water for her to drink. 

During her illness, he found himself speaking to her more. Telling her bits and pieces of his life. Of what he'd once been - the magician, the performer, at first those were the only two personas he could bring himself to speak of.

But late in the night, when she was half asleep and he was not sure she could hear him, he would whisper about other things. The orphan. And, once, in the quiet of night, when he thought she was dozing: _assassin_.

It hadn't always been that way. He began as an ordinary performer. A magician, whose tricks were just that: illusions. Giving the audience the thrill of witnessing something dangerous within the reassurance that all would be well, in the end.

The basket trick was safe as houses when he knew where to place the blades and the potential victim had been carefully instructed privately about where and how to arrange their limbs. 

But the little Sultana was clever and cruel. She understood how the trick was done after seeing it performed a few times; it bored her. Unbeknownst to him, she'd ordered a new basket made. He ought to have known something was wrong when she chose his victim from the crowd, giving him no opportunity to speak to the man (a disgraced military officer, he would later learn) beforehand. Little matter, he thought, so arrogantly, so selfishly. He would not be humiliated by an unexpected setback; he knew the configuration of the basket, after all. Confidently, he strode forward and plunged the first sword inside.

He did not realize his folly until he heard the first agonized scream from within. And, oh, how the little Sultana laughed and laughed.

Her pale blue eyes fluttered open and looked at him steadily. Calmly. "Were there many more? After?"

Oh, yes. Dozens. Some escaped; the little Sultana liked the idea of Fate taking a hand. If they lived, they lived. And if not, well, she got to drink her fill of clever torture.

Horrified with himself, Erik could not speak anymore. He could only nod. He did not look at her. 

"Is that why...?"

The question remained unfinished, but he knew why she was asking. _Is that why you became a monster?_

The room of mirrors had been a particular favorite of hers. A little light and heat and the human mind conjured horrors beyond anything his poor twisted mind could offer. Some imagined themselves in the desert. Others, the jungle, claiming to hear the shrieks of tigers in their ears, or feel beetles crawling on their skin. Fate cast no favor upon those victims; they all met their ends wickedly and horribly. All but one.

A strange woman who strode into the court accompanied by no guards, yet evidently come to be punished. No crime was announced, no sentence read. She stepped into the room of mirrors of her own accord. Erik could not for the life of him remember her face, her form, even the color of her hair. He only remembered her red lips, sharp teeth, and dark eyes; black, and pitiless. 

She did not shriek or cry out, did not beg or rave. She stood calmly in the center of the room, unaffected, even as he turned the heat up high enough to roast the flesh from her bones. The Sultana did not laugh, she pouted and strode away, her afternoon's entertainment spoiled. Clearly, her magician had erred in his use of the contraption. 

But he had not. Opening the door revealed a burst of air hot as hellfire. But the woman within was unharmed and unchanged. He didn't know what to make of it. Until she turned her black eyes upon him and her red mouth opened to speak.

"I was already a beast," he managed, recalling the words she had spoken so very long ago. "She only completed the work I had enacted upon myself for years."

A movement by his arm made him tense. He opened his eyes and saw Christine's little fingers lightly gripping the sleeve of his coat. 

"Whatever...you have done," she said delicately and so gently, it made his chest ache. "You have been kind to me. If you truly were so very bad, you've changed. For the better, I think."

She smiled. Despite all he'd said, she touched him and she smiled.

_I love her_ , he thought. The witch's words came back to him again, but he dismissed him; the love of a monster was not enough to break the spell.

With time and care, Christine was well again. The winter waned; it would be spring soon. Like Persephone, he fancied she would leave him to molder away beneath the earth. 

_I could keep her_ , he thought, the notion quick and viciously striking his mind. And why not? Hadn't he fed her, clothed her, warmed her? Did she not _owe_ him something?

No, she did not. He knew this and felt the righteousness of it keenly. She'd given him so much - her song, her smiles, her continued assertions that he was kind, that he was _better_ than he had been.

If he had to live an eternity as a monster and alone, was that not somehow better than living a mortal life of wickedness and cruelty. To love and be loved in return was, he knew, too great a miracle to hope for. But perhaps this had been the sorceress's goal all along - a kind monster was a better sort of creature than a cruel man.

Erik began preparing for her departure. He found her sturdy cloth which which to fashion a new dress, even an overcoat to keep out the chill. Her ragged boots he could do little about, but he patched the soles for her so they would not let the wet in. The meager bits of money he had collected over the years were slipped into a purse that she might take with her, carefully concealed in the lining of the coat.

When Christine saw all this laid out before her one warm morning, her eyes went wide with shock and her rosebud mouth dropped open in surprise. She had bathed and he kept her well-fed; she was truly beautiful on this last day they would spend together. He would not forget her face as he had done the sorceress. If he was tempted to evil, he would remember her and think, _Christine said you were a kind man._  

"What is this?" she asked, picking up the coat, feeling the weight of the coins in their purse. "Are you sending me away?"

There was a note of accusation in that voice which he knew and loved so well that he was not expecting. "Don't you want to go? Don't you want to see the sun? Don't you miss it?"

"I..." 

No, she could not deny that she missed the sun; even he, who always found solace in darkness, missed the sunlight.

"I shouldn't like to leave you," she said, looking up at him with an unfathomable expression. The nearest he could come to placing it was thinking that she looked sad.

"You know the way below," he pointed out. But he doubted she would walk the dank and narrow passages any longer. She was healthy. She had a bit of money to make a good start and more than a bit of beauty to find a husband to love her and cherish her as her father had. She would not come again, he was sure, and the monster who once helped a poor maid would becoming nothing more than a half-remembered story she might use to comfort her children at night. _Not every hideous thing that lurks in the shadows is bad, my loves._

She looked up at him steadily with that soft, not-quite-sad expression. She shook her head and repeated, "I shouldn't like to leave you."

In his chest, his heart clenched. Had he not prepared for her to go? Had he not felt noble? Had he not felt as though he was doing a truly right and good thing for the first time in his life? Why wouldn't she leave?

"Why?" he asked. 

Those calm eyes. That soft smile. The gentle pressure of her hand on his arm.

"Because I love you."

It was his undoing. He backed away from her, fire lancing through him, driving him to his knees. He thought he saw a blinding light, but it might have just been brought on by the shattering pain in his limbs, wracking his frame with convulsions and he did not know if he screamed or Christine did. The sound of it was piercing, but oddly beautiful.

The coat that hid his monstrous body lay rumpled around him like a cape. Erik knelt on the floor panting, bracing himself with jaundiced, spider-like hands. Hands that could coax sweet music out of any instrument they touched or perform feats of legerdemain that dazzled kings.

The sound of his own ragged breathing was all he could hear over the blood in his ears. Then two simple syllables drowned it all out.

"Erik?"

"No!" he shouted as he sensed her coming closer. Those talented hands rose up and performed the feat they were best suited to - acting as a shield. For just as his body was transformed, so was his face and he felt it all under his fingers; the thin, grotesque flesh, the corpse-like features, the hideousness that had marked his life's path since he entered the world. Not a monster any longer, but still monstrous.

Christine gasped and he pressed his hands harder over his face, convinced she had seen. He opened his mouth to apologize, but she spoke first, wonderingly, sound catching in her disbelieving throat.

"Your _voice_."

Restored. Completely restored. His one beauty returned. Because she said she loved him.

But she couldn't possibly. Perhaps he had misunderstood - she might have loved the warmth he provided and the care, but him? No. It was _impossible_.

Only the reality of her love was evident in the feel of his bare feet on the floor, his hands upon his face, the brief, but glorious sound of his voice echoing in the chambers. 

She was touching him again, her shoulder this time. How strange that she should be standing above him, now as he huddled on the ground like a weak and wretched thing. 

"Erik?" she asked, tugging at his arm, trying to see what he concealed. 

Poor girl; having been brought up on stories of charms and enchantments, doubtless she thought she knew how it all ended. A tender word, a kind touch and the frog became a prince - a _handsome_ prince at that. He was not handsome. Or a prince. Or even 'Erik' - she was the only one who called him that and when she went so too the name would vanish with her. She loved him - she _said_ she loved him. But it did not matter.

They could not remain like that, Orpheus and Eurydice, believing all would be well so long as he did not turn around. 

"Do not run," he advised as he had that long-ago day when she asked to see him. "It is easy to become lost. I will take you above. I will cover my face. But please, do _not_ run."

Before he dropped his hands, she asked him, "Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why..." she faltered, then regained her nerve. "Why shouldn't you like me to get lost?"

He saw what she was about. And so he replied.

"Because I love you." 

Then he dropped his hands, and (coward that he was) closed his eyes. He heard her gasp and it was enough. He hung his head and raised his hands to cover himself, but she grasped his thin wrists and asked, "What else must be done?"

Of course, he reflected bitterly. She thought this was some other manifestation of his curse. 

Opening his eyes, he looked up into her concerned face. The shock and misery there broke his heart. 

"Nothing," he started to explain. "There is nothing - "

She surged forward and he cringed, pulling away from her, turning his head so that when her lips met his flesh, they only grazed the side of his cheek. She frowned and released his wrists, made to touch his face, to hold him still, and this time he took her hands, gently in his own, but firmly.

"Christine," he said, voice steady. Part of him wished she would continue her ministrations, that selfish part of himself that was his ruin. The nobler aspects of his person, those she had brought forth in him, overwhelmed that petulant, demanding voice easily. "There is nothing more to be done. This is...all of me that ever was. Do you understand?"

A sharp intake of air told him that she did, finally, understand. He released her hands and cautioned her again, "Please don't run."

She did not. She took a step back, warily, studying him. Then she sat down upon the floor. Not close enough to touch, but close enough.

"Would you sing for me?" she asked, looking up at him, eyes bright with unshed tears. "Please?"

It had been a long time, but music had ever been his lifeblood. And how could he deny her now?

He took in a breath and sang. A simple folksong about a man courting a young maid. She closed her eyes and listened as above them the winter world thawed into what promised to be a brilliant spring.


End file.
